Une épée de Damoclès
Meaning: A disaster hanging over someone, liable to fall at any moment.
Language: French
Literally: A sword of Damocles
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Cicero tells of the courtier Damocles, who envied his tyrant's fortune and was seated at his table beneath a sword suspended by a single horsehair. The lesson was about the anxiety of power, not about bad luck.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Entretenir une danseuse — To maintain a costly indulgence that serves no purpose.
- À l'usage du Dauphin — Expurgated; censored for delicate sensibilities.
- Les dés sont pipés — The outcome is rigged in advance.
- Au débotté — On the spot, with no time to prepare.
- Les délices de Capoue — Comfort that saps the will to keep fighting.
- Après moi le déluge — What happens once I am gone is not my problem.
More French idioms
- Le démon de midi — The midlife crisis, especially its romantic form.
- Mentir comme un arracheur de dents — To lie brazenly and habitually.
- Dur à la détente — Slow to understand — or, in the other sense, reluctant to part with money.
- Qui paye ses dettes s'enrichit — Settling what you owe leaves you better off than owing it.
- Faire son deuil de quelque chose — To accept that something is lost and give up on it.
- Jeter son dévolu sur quelque chose — To settle firmly on something one intends to have.
From our tongue twisters
- Un chasseur sachant chasser doit savoir chasser sans son chien. — The classic French 'ch' / 's' tangler.
- Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches, archi-sèches? — A merciless duel between 'ch' and 's'.
- Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cents scies scient six cents cyprès. — An 's' / 'si' minefield.
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